a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Radio Interview Odds and Ends

Jarron’s almost-decade with the Jazz happened before podcasts and online radio and all that. I knew that he was one of the most eloquent and well-spoken dudes I’d ever heard, but I didn’t know he has such a funny laugh (Beavis and Butthead-ish, minus the obnoxious).

One. John “Spider” Salley to Jarron: All I remember is that you threw a lot of elbows. You threw a lot of elbows and you took charges when guys was taking jump shots. [JC cracks up] That’s all I remember is that you get under people’s ankles. I remember that shit.

Jarron on playing DeMarcus Cousins in the pre-season: I caught him with an elbow [in his chest]; he didn’t appreciate it. Coming back down court, I knew that he wanted to get me back so as soon as he did the same thing to me, I fell like–dramatic performance. Got the offensive foul on him, which infuriated him even more. So, those things are pleasant to do. / Jarron also said Cousins is a tremendous talent.

Two.John Salley on the 1998 NBA lockout: I was working on NBC, saw the breakdown when David Falk was trying to get them to break the union. I saw Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Michael Jordan…I saw the breakdown of this union. I saw Karl Malone come in [JC: Did he have a cowbow hat on?] and read a statement. David Stern said, “You’re not going to come in here on a white horse” and all of a sudden we no longer saw Karl Malone commercials and no longer were we talking about Karl Malone. He became an enemy to the league.

Raise your hand if Karl Malone is even more of a hero to you now. *raises hand*

Three.Jarron, when asked for a Karl Malone story: We’re down in Miami, it’s my rookie year, we beat the dog poop out of the Miami Heat, and Coach put in the guys that didn’t play that much. John Amaechi was one of those guys, he didn’t play that much. John was getting into a heated argument with Coach Sloan, and he wouldn’t shoot the basketball out of spite. So he was out of the rotation, got put in in garbage time, and every time guys were trying to get him shots, he wouldn’t shoot it out of spite.

So after the game, Karl’s being Karl. He’s busting John’s butt a little bit [John Salley then busts JC’s butt about his choice of words here], so Karl’s giving him a hard time and he’s looking at the stat sheet after the game and is like, [launches into Karl impression] “John, you shot the ball? You didn’t even shoot the ball. Goddog, I wish I was out there, I woulda shot the ball.” So then he drops the stat sheet and I pick it up and I’m saying, “Yeah, damn right you would’ve shot that ball, Karl. You played three quarters and got up 19 shots.”

Everybody started to laugh except for Karl. Karl just got this look on his face like, “What the hell did this rookie just say to me?” As soon as I said it, everybody laughed and I just looked at him and was like, “Aw shit.” / The story ends with Karl making Jarron carry his bags and turn on the lights and turn down the bed in his hotel room the next day.

Four.Scott Layden on Derrick Favors: Some of the subleties in his game I like already. Defensively, we keep defensive statistics internally which we’re not supposed to discuss publicly–so I guess I’ll get fined in the morning–but he has fared well, very well, early on and I think a lot of that has to do with all the games he played in New Jersey.
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Also, Derrick Favors has unbelievable hands. He catches everything that’s in his area. He’s able to get rebounds out of his area and I think that’s going to help him as he moves forward not only offensively, but defensively. He runs the floor very easy and gets up and down the court and is in the mix all the time. He’s not afraid, he goes in there, he’s physical, he plays hard. We couldn’t be happier to have a guy who’s 19 and has this tremendous upside, and he seems like a fine young man and only has great things ahead of him.